“Ammonium Nitrate (AN) is the common explosive chemical with the highest potential for use in a large terrorist bomb.” -When Ammonium Nitrate mixes with fuel oil, it creates ANFO, a powerful explosive. Despite the essential role it plays in our country’s agriculture, AN has become an agent for creating havoc, as we saw twelve years ago in Oklahoma.But thanks to research work done by a group of individuals led by a former Breathitt Countian, the risk of Ammonium Nitrate causing a threat has been greatly reduced. And it’s being done by coating the AN with a by-product of a mineral that lies deep in our ground.

“We had the idea several years ago, after that bombing in Oklahoma City,” said Dr. Darrell Taulbee, Industrial Support Coordinator for the University of Kentucky Center for Applied Energy Research. Thanks to a grant from the National Institute of Hometown Security (NIHS), based in Somerset, Taulbee and his team in Lexington were able to take a leftover product of coal to coat the AN. “When you burn coal to make electricity, you produce a lot of ash. On average, there’s about 120 million tons of ash produced a year. They call this Coal Combustion By-Products, or CCB’s.”

With plenty of the ash out there, the prospect of putting it to good use looked inviting, Taulbee pointed out during a telephone interview with the Voice last week. “We thought it was a possiblity. We wanted to find a way to dilute the Ammonium Nitrate, but in the past it was too expensive, or it was bad for agriculture. So we did some tests, but we weren’t equipped properly.”

That’s where the funding from NIHS (a division of the Department of Homeland Security) came in to play. “Once we got the funds to go to work, we started looking at four different classes of CCB’s. And then last summer, we did detonation tests up on Frozen Creek,” added Taulbee. The test site - the farm where Darrell and his grew up at - was near the head of Blanton Bridge Fork of Frozen, about a mile from the Breathitt-Magoffin County line.

“We coated Ammonium Nitrate at various concentrations of CCB’s, that ranged from zero to 50%. Then we loaded those into steel canisters a couple of feet tall, a quarter-inch thick, and four inches in diameter.” Taulbee and his crew then did the testing, detonating the canisters and filming the results with high-speed cameras.

For Taulbee and those who helped with the tests, the results were satisfying. “We found that these coatings of CCB’s on the Ammonium Nitrate were highly effective. A ratio of 15% CCB’s coating to 85% Ammonium Nitrate stopped the detonation. Later we came back to Frozen and did more tests on a large scale, with 200-pound charges and also did some agricultural testing as well.”

Armed with these findings, Taulbee and his co-workers now had evidence that a common chemical that’s usually helpful to farmers could now be tamed. Tamed to where malicious and horrific attacks - like the ones in Oklahoma City in 1995; the Marriot Hotel in Djakarta, Indonesia; the Sari Club Discotheque in Bali; and the first World Trade Center attack in 1993 - may be prevented in the future. “The primary focus is preventing Ammonium Nitrate from exploding. When you look at using the CCB’s produced from ash, it’s extremely inexpensive. You’re looking at around five dollars a ton. And it keeps the CCB’s from being thrown away in a landfill.”

Not only that, but by coating Ammonium Nitrate with CCB’s, Taulbee adds that it keeps the chemical in the hands of farmers - a big plus in Kentucky’s agricultural picture. “There’s been a big push to have AN regulated or eliminated, but the testing we did and our findings lessens the chance of doing away with Ammonium Nitrate. This is important to Kentucky’s farmers, especially with those who grow tobacco and small vegetable crops.”

The testing was completed last November, and now Taulbee has filed for a patent, so it can be put to use by the public. Now that the results have shown the risk of explosions from AN reduced, Taulbee laughed and looked back at the time spent up Frozen with his fellow scientists. “Those guys I took up there on the family farm were amazed. They never saw anything like the woods and the hillsides we have here. It was entirely a complete turnaround from the city life of Lexington.”

A 1970 graduate of Breathitt High School, Taulbee got his Bachelor of Science degree from Centre College in Danville in 1974; a Master of Science degree from the University of Kentucky in 1986; and a PhD in Analytical Chemistry from UK in 1994. He’s a member of the American Chemical Society, Division of Fuel Chemistry and Division of Geochemistry; as well as a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Briquetting and Agglomeration, and has been honored with several awards.

Probably the most rewarding part of Taulbee’s life is being husband to the former Helen Johnson (a 1971 BHS graduate) and the father of two children - a son that recently graduated from Transylvania University in Lexington, and a daughter now attending Centre College. And while they call Frankfort home, there’s still the Taulbee family farm at Frozen - a place where Darrell and Helen occasionally go back to for the weekend. It gives them a taste of the mountain life they once knew and cherish today. It also gives, as Darrell puts it, “a chance to burn off some stress, by four-wheeling in the woods.”